late to the game again, but you're used to it by now

I haven't seen the macbook air commercial. I heard the song is good, though. so I found it and I liked it enough that I'm going to put it up here. that's two videos in one month, if you're keeping score. the girls name is Yael Naim, and she's pretty and and has a pretty voice. nice if you're into that. if you are, I liked this too.

more from the fault; plus, facebook - it's like myspace, but not awful

more from the vault. I think i'm going to get these made into fatheads for my wall.

you like how I took a photo, then got an action shot of them drinking tall cans? me too.

---------------------------------

so I signed up for facebook. as usual I'm a little late on this one, but whatever. my friend Sam defined the terms of our relationship thusly:

You dated, got a little serious, and still get along great.

indeed.

more from the archives - stalking the urban cougar

several years ago I was a cougar hunter for halloween. I made up a license and tags to go with my costume. costume was a preppy outfit w/ a hunting hat w/ 'lures' on it. lures were engagement rings I got at target. and a platinum Amex card. and monopoly money.
sweet.

dusting off the photo album

going through the files, doing some tidying up. found this photo from when I was in Rio de Janeiro last year. that flat building with the red roof building at the upper left is the jetty where copacabana beach ends and Ipanema beach starts. i'm on the copa side, looking towards ipanema. Copacabana beach runs parallel to the street shown in the photo.

the psychology of love

I have long told my friends (and self) that it's not about the girls you like, it's about the girls that like you. easier said than done, but logically it makes sense.

this short article over at scientific american suggests that there is an evolutionary advantage to infatuation ("crazy love"), in that it demonstrates possible long-term commitment to a partner. and that's good, says the scientist, because from a reproductive-advantage standpoint it indicates that the person won't trade up later on. In other words, it's not about about the girls you like, etc., etc. you can read the explanation here:

http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=A8EF82B7-E827-7A68-1201682731D31045

in other news, this video may or may not have caused a stirring in my loins.

lolcats picture courtesy of icanhascheezburger, which I hear is cute and funny but I wouldn't know because I've only been to that website by accident. seriously.

magnus kickassersson knows from arm wrestling

as a guy that may or may not have done some arm wrestling at the local pub (usually on St. Patrick's day, winner buys the drinks), I enjoyed this video from Magnus Sameuelsson about arm wrestling. it's kind of technical, but it's interesting. and funny at the end.

there's a bonus video-within-a-video of Magnus arm wresting some guy named Megaman. Magnus puts the move on him and the guy's arm/shoulder gives out under the stress. Also Magnus has some super bitchin' Kool Moe Dee style sunglasses. hotness!

housebuilding in mexico is the new housebuilding in the US

I spent this past weekend building a house in TJ for a needy family. super good times with some of my favorite peeps. plus all the cool people were doing it. we went down with a group from Amor Ministries (warning: website has too much flash, bold text, and christian buzzwords).

it takes 2.5 days to build up a house from bare slab to stucco'd home w/ locking doors and windows. it's a lot easier to put a place together than in the US, but these places are warm (2 coats of stucco!) and hopefully water tight. the typical house in the area is 4 garage doors nailed together with a tin roof, so a place like this is pretty nice.

I have a bunch of photos of pretty girls (on the work team), the family/kids we built the house for, and puppies, but you get some pix of me instead. Who wants to look at pictures of pretty girls doing hard work for charity? BORRRRIIIIIIING.

custom cartography

i was talking to my friend on the east coast and confessed that I didn't have much of an idea where certain cities are in relation to one another. For example, is Boston north or south of NYC? i guessed north, but if the answer had been south I would not have been surprised. She was nice enough to send me a map of the area. I thought it was funny.

Notice the prominent landmarks (lakes), and the not-to-scale states of Alaska and Hawaii. Also the approximate location of major metropolitan areas. It gets no better.

work of genius - the BeatBearing project

I rarely do the video on GJAW b/c it slows the site down. but this is one of my favorite videos in recent memory. it's not as funny as the gay guy that climbed everest, though.

people have invented all kinds of high-tech musical instruments (see the creator of this instruments blog for some good examples). most are silly or near impossible to play. this, not so much. it is a sequencer (a device that makes sounds in sequence, in this case, demo'd as a drum machine) crafted of ball bearings. simple, but effective. this and garageband and you can make all kinds of sweet, sweet beatz. re-purpose the sequence sounds to musical notes and you can make music. that would take forever and you're probably better off learning guitar instead, but still.

tom cruise gets his crazy on

if you haven't seen the video of tom cruise going on and on (9 minutes!) about how die-hard he is about scientology, here you go:
http://defamer.com/344987/the-tom-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientologists-dont-want-you-to-see

for a shorter version of highlights only, go here:
http://defamer.com/345201/defamers-top-five-creeptastic-moments-from-the-tom-cruise-scientology-video-you-know-the-one

it's kind of hard to understand because he uses some scientology terminology. 'sp' is shorthand for 'suppressive person', or anyone that doesn't agree with scientology. there's a lot of back and forth about whether or not Cruise is batshit crazy, but that depends on whether you agree with scientology or not. I think he's nuts, but that's me.

one thing is certain: he is 100% committed fanatical about it.

ps. freedom medal of valor? are you for real?

andy rooney, generalities, and idiocy

A good friend forwarded me a stupid email today. It happens sometimes.

It seemed fake to me, so I checked snopes. you can read the summary here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney4.asp

what is it about email that encourages people to forward garbage? I have elderly relatives and the only thing I ever get from them is forwarded junk mail. why is that? i have no explanation that makes any kind of sense. because they're old? they struggle driving a car? no idea.

I was even more confused by the responses from people that I know and respect. Stuff like, "except for the bitter tone, i agree" and, more surprising, "i didn't read anything mean-spirited". seriously? seriously.

bummed me out a little.

tortoise + wok = awesome

or sexy, depending on where you sit.
http://tw.video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=757215

thanks to my "blind" friend Zach for the tip.

if you don't know what I mean by blind, then get caught up here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Y6PchDYfw

both links are safe for work, unless awesome is against the rules at your office.

Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple

this brief Fox News parody from the Simpsons was forwarded by a friend. i especially liked the crawling garbage at the bottom of the screen. ahhhhh, satire.

enjoy.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/49281/

happy holidays. and new year.

intermittent posting is reduced to near zero while I'm on vacation. If you're bored you can check the archives. I'll be back with regular irrelevancies starting 7 January 2008.

see you then.

how many 5 year olds could you take in a fight?

22
supposedly, I'm good for 22. I think that number is a little high. i would get tired and succumb to 12 or 13.

report suspicious behavior

The city of Chicago has a warning posted on their official website.

Be sure to call 911 (in Chicago) if you see any "note taking, binocular use, cameras, videos, maps" around the holidays. You never can trust someone that's out taking notes and pictures in public spaces, especially this time of year. If you're clever you could take notes on the suspicious behavior, maybe take their picture, or get a better look at the suspicious person with binoculars, or shoot video of them, then mark down their location on a map. But then you might get arrested for, well, behaving suspiciously.

The full URL is:
http://webapps.cityofchicago.org/ChicagoAlertWeb/resources/pdf/WinterHolidayPublicAwareness.pdf

But you can also get to it from here.

I am an international financier, Part the Third

A while ago I wrote a post about loaning some money through Kiva.org (see button in the sidebar for a link - i'm too lazy to put it here). I got another small reimbursement from the woman that Kiva helped me (and others) loan money to. No text updates, but she's paying on time so I'm hoping that it's going well.

here's the text of a previous email from the group that organized the loan:

Karomadjon is very happy, because due the loan from KIva she increased the volume of her goods and she could paid education for her children and also she could buy new clothes for daughter.Her business is gradually takes rate of groth.In thew end of this month she plans to purchase vegetables and other food product for winter season.She is very thankful for KIva.

If that doesn't warm your heart then you're a miracle, because you don't have one.

nice office

Wired magazine published their 'winners' of the saddest cubicle contest.

The winning submission (submittal?) was this rigged-up office w/ no light (the overhead is broken) and a poorly ventilated bathroom and microwave nearby.

"[the person that works there] recalls a day when one co-worker reheated catfish in the microwave, while another used the bathroom and covered the smell with a stinky air freshener."

Nice.

See the rest here.

can we get this trade done today?

was talking to a Detroit Lions fan earlier today. The Lions were 6-2 at the midway point of the NFL season and looking like a lock for the playoffs. Since then they have lost 5 in a row and may lose out the rest of the season, end the year on an 8 game losing streak. They are not very good.

The Niners aren't very good either, so I asked him if we could put a trade together, package up Nate Clements and Alex Smith, two of the biggest busts in the draft and free agency of the past couple years.

He said, "you send over Alex Smith, because he's bad, and also Clements and his huge contract, we can maybe move him to wideout [inside joke there, because the Lions draft WRs in the first round every year], and we'll give you Matt Millen, and maybe some draft picks."

I laughed.

flood averted, also: ricky hatton got pummeled

I wrote about finding water (where no water should be) in my house last week. Turns out it was probably a spill. I say 'probably' because the roommates won't cop to it. Whatever. I had the plumber over to take a look and we couldn't find anything. No pipes, no water from above, nothing. so it was a $40 false alarm. and I have to patch some drywall in the garage. I'm not pumped to patch the drywall, but I'm glad I don't have a leaky pipe in the floor.

in other news, Ricky Hatton got beat up by Floyd Mayweather. I bought the fight, and it was worth my $55 to watch instead of waiting. Overall it was a good fight. Hatton got rocked w/ wicked accurate punches while he pushed Mayweather around the ring, and eventually Mayweather got tired of getting pushed around and knocked him out. Mayweather is an accurate and fast puncher; Hatton is a good fighter, but not in Mayweather's class, and it showed on Saturday.

dog pictured is available for adoption at the Irvine Animal Care Center. He looks like a weird mismatch of parts, frankensteined together. Why are his front legs so short? Why does he have such a huge cranium? I'll let you now how he behaves when I visit with him on wednesday.
great job today.